India will develop 5,000MW more grid-connected solar photovoltaic power projects under the fourth batch of the Phase-ll of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).
The projects will be awarded under ‘build, own and operate’ basis and are expected to involve investments totalling INR300bn ($4.4bn).
Indian Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the new developments which are to be backed with Viability Gap Funding (VGF) by the government.
India intends to support the potential projects with Rs50.5bn ($742.3m) funds.
JNNSM is a government initiative launched in the country in 2010 with a target to reach 20GW of grid connected solar power developments by 2022.
The target has now been increased to 100GW of solar installations by that time.
The new projects will be built in four tranches during four financial years of 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19, with around 1,250MW of capacity to be added to the grid every year.
The proposed developments are expected to open up employment for around 30,000 people and can eliminate 8.525 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) will be initiating a competitive bidding process to select developers for the projects.
Power purchase agreement (PPA) with the developers and the power sale agreement with the buying entities will be signed thereafter.
The government expects to turn the projects operational within 13 months after the PPAs are signed.
Planned to be built in solar parks across the Indian states, the projects are expected to generate about 8,300 million units of clean energy annually, which will be sufficient to meet the power demands of around 2.5 million Indian homes.
Image: India plans to reach 100GW capacity by 2022. Photo: courtesy of FreeImages.com / Amberle Van Den Broeke.
